All eyes on the prize

With a little under 5 weeks to go all eyes in the cricketing world are switching to Australia and New Zealand.  No not the SLvNZ and AusvInd test series, the domestic cricket.  How so??

A while back (maybe a  week or so) an Indian on my twitter feed was ruing the state of his team and was not looking forward to the world cup as the pitches would favour the two local teams and countries that play on similar surfaces.  This was also echoed by a Pakistani tweep.  Australia they're not too worried about as pitches tend to favour runs scoring with plenty of bounce and true lines.  But New Zealand pitches have a reputation of being green decks with plenty for the bowlers and the batsmen have to really dig in to score runs  At that time I told both that they had nothing to worry about as our domestic pitches are roads now and runscoring is not an issue.

And that seems to be the truth.  Saxton Oval is the only CWC pitch to be used thus far in Ford Trophy and a highscoring game, and Hagley had a test that produced plenty of runs. McLean Park is historically a road, so that leaves Eden Park and Westpac Stadium (drop ins) and University Oval and Seddon Park (test venues).  I think it's fair to say the drop ins are generally conducive to run getting so there should be no fears there.  Of all the venues, the unknown quantity will be University Oval and Seddon Park.

I'd say all teams coming here shall be greeted by hard dry pitches with runs in them (as a hot dry summer goes on).  And should New Zealand progress to finals stage at MCG having played on those decks should stand them in good stead in Aussie.